Cloche and Dagger (20 page)

“What?” Elise asked.

“I was there with a photographer to take pictures of her in the hat when her body was found,” I said.

My voice cracked and Chelsea reached over and squeezed my hand. I appreciated the gesture.

“Were you?” Elise asked. She stared at me for a moment and then she put her hand over her heart and gave me a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. That must have been awful.”

“Did she appear to have suffered?” Susie asked.

I had hoped they wouldn’t press me for details. Lady Ellis had been naked with a knife in her chest and a hat on her head. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her pale form lying in a pool of blood. What could I possibly say?

“No,” I lied. “It must have been very quick.”

I saw them all relax just the slightest bit. Even if they suspected I was lying, they were willing to cling to it for the little bit of peace it gave them. I knew I would do the same.

“Oh! Look at the time,” Chelsea said. “I have to meet my husband for drinks in thirty minutes.”

And just like that, the four of them were texting their drivers to come and get them while Fee boxed up the hats they’d selected.

As the first driver knocked on the door, they left en masse. I noticed a cluster of reporters and photographers camped out across the street. With a quick glance at the drivers, I understood why they were so far away. I would have been across the street as well if I had to get through the brawn to get to the ladies. All of the drivers were big and beefy and looked more than capable of quelling a mob with their bare hands.

I closed and locked the door behind them and turned to find Fee wearing the beret, which no one had claimed.

“I’m glad no one picked this one,” she said. “I’m partial to it myself.”

I began to clear up the cups and plates. It was almost seven now and the day spent cleaning and hostessing had worn me out.

“Did I miss anything of interest while I was outside with Marianne?” I asked.

Fee picked up the remaining dishes and followed me into the workroom. I would wash Mim’s china here before hauling it back upstairs.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “There was a bit of a scuffle over the white pillbox hat with the sheer veil. All three of them wanted it, but Lady Cheevers won that brawl. I got the feeling she has the most power in that group.”

“She does now,” I said. I told Fee what Marianne had told me about all of them meeting at a girls’ school.

“Makes me glad I went to the neighborhood school here in Notting Hill,” she said. “I can’t imagine five scarier adolescents.”

“A wolf pack would be more cuddly,” I agreed.

I circled back to the sitting area in the shop. I wanted to pull the shades down and shut off the lights as well as make sure we’d gotten all the crumbs. I didn’t scrub all day so that the place could be a mess in two hours.

When I was satisfied, I headed back to the workroom. On my way, I noticed Ferd the bird, staring down at me with his usual beaky attitude.

“I still think you’d be better-looking as a nice fat-faced angel.”

I stepped close to the cupboard below him and opened the door. It was empty. The pedestal where Lady Ellis’s hat had been was forlornly empty. I wondered if this was where Viv always kept her special projects. I leaned in to remove the pedestal and noted that the depth of the wardrobe seemed shorter than it should be. Then I remembered that one of the things Mim had loved about this wardrobe was its many secret compartments. Maybe that was why Ferd always looked so smug: he had so many secrets.

I ran fingers along the back wall until I found the latch in the upper right corner. Sure enough, with a press from my fingers, I heard the mechanism release and the false wall was unlocked. It opened from a hinge on one side and I swung it forward, revealing the back half of the cupboard area.

I gasped. Sitting on a hat stand was a purple flat-topped and wide-brimmed hat that was trimmed in a luscious ring of matching feathers. It was gorgeous, simply gorgeous.

But where had it come from? I hadn’t seen Fee working on anything like this. And why was it hidden? Was it being kept a secret for a reason?

“Fiona!” I called.

My voice must have radiated panic because Fee came bustling through the door from the back room as if I’d yelled, “Fire!”

“What is it?” she asked. “Is someone breaking in?”

“No, it’s a hat!” I said.

She put her hand over her chest and sucked in a breath.

“A hat?” she cried. “You scared me to death over a hat?”

It was then that I noticed the wooden hat form in her hand.

“That’s some advanced weaponry you’ve got there,” I said.

“Well, it would give the bugger a blasting headache, yeah?” she retorted.

I couldn’t argue it. Once she’d caught her breath, I asked, “Have you ever seen this hat before?”

She stepped closer and studied it, running her fingers along the brim.

“It’s lovely,” she said. “Look at the hand stitching on the brim, it’s flawless.”

“But why is it hidden in the wardrobe?” I asked. “How did it get in here?”

I glanced up at Ferd but he wasn’t talking.

“Oh, that’s just the cupboard doing what it does,” Fee said. Then she gave me a startled look and clapped her hand over her mouth.

“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she said, very unconvincingly.

“Fiona, explain,” I said.

“I can’t,” she said. “Look, Viv must have put it in there before she left. You really have to talk to her about it. Oh, look at the time. I’ve got to go or my brothers will be out looking for me. Last time I turned up late for dinner they tried to have my mother give me a curfew.”

“Fee, you’re holding out on me,” I said. I followed her into the back room.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said.

And before I could detain her with any more questions, she grabbed her jacket and slipped out the back door.

“Don’t forget to set the alarm!” she yelled. With a wave she unlatched the back gate and hustled down the alley.

I turned back to the cupboard and lifted the hat out. Where had it come from? I felt my insides shiver. Something was definitely not adding up.

My brain kicked my thoughts around like stray tin cans, sending them off in different directions so fast that I could barely examine them before they disappeared.

Who put the hat in there? And why? It must have been Viv. But when? Who was the hat made for? And if she did put it in there why didn’t she leave a note to let someone know it was there?

Then I had a horrible thought. Maybe Viv wasn’t really away. Maybe she was actually nearby, lurking and watching and killing her old boyfriend’s wife!

I gave myself a mental face-slap. Now that was just crazy talk.

I put the hat back in the back of the cupboard, closing the secret panel over it, and decided to get out of the shop. Being cooped up for the past few days was obviously making me bonkers.

I glanced out the front window and noted that the reporters still lingered. The April evening was chilly, so I grabbed my lightweight wool coat off the rack by the back door. I set the alarm on my way out, feeling very modern as I did so.

I let myself out of the narrow back garden gate just as Fee had and into the alley. No one was on the street this late on a Sunday evening, and I could hear the sounds of television broadcasts coming from above as I made my way around to Portobello Road.

My first stop was Andre’s, to see if he and Nick were about. Maybe I could convince them to come to the pub with me. I had just reached the corner when a head poked out of an upper window.

“Hello, Scarlett,” Nick called. “I knew I recognized that wild mane of red. How are you?”

“Looking for a dinner date or two,” I called back. He was wearing a hot pink tank top and looked as if he’d been working out. “Are you and Andre available?”

“Andre’s off on assignment,” he said. “I was just about to start my Pilates, so yes, dinner sounds lovely. I’ll be right down. Don’t move.”

His head disappeared back into the window and I waited for him to let me in. I followed him upstairs to their flat and saw that it, too, was thick with photographs propped against the walls.

The rest of the room looked to be a room at war. Shades of green and purple were battling it out in the furnishings, and I wondered which of them had owned the purple suede couch and which the green leather wing chair, which seemed to have nothing but disdain for each other.

He handed me a glass of red wine and kissed me on the cheek.

“Ten minutes!” he yelled. “I promise.”

I sank onto the green chair and checked the box of books by the seat. They were mostly dental texts with such riveting titles as
The
Color Atlas of Dental Implant Surgery
—obviously
Nick’s box then.

I decided this was not going to work for me as before-dinner reading material, mostly because I was sure I wouldn’t understand a word. Instead, I found a stack of
Livingetc
magazines, and I wondered if these were more Andre’s or Nick’s or both.

I had only gotten halfway done with my wine and a third of the way through the magazine when Nick reappeared, looking decidedly dashing in black jeans and an ecru fisherman’s sweater.

He held out his arm and asked, “Shall we?”

“I don’t know,” I said as I downed my wine. “I think I’d rather go out with you in the hot pink tank top.”

“Oh, please,” he said. “My public would swoon.”

“Yes, you’re right,” I said. I put my glass in the kitchen and took his elbow. “We wouldn’t want to create mass hysteria or anything.”

He led me outside to the street and asked, “All right, what is your stomach’s desire? Thai? Italian? You name it.”

“How about a place where we can gossip?” I asked.

“You have dish?” he asked.

“I might if the ambiance were conducive,” I said.

He laughed and patted my hand. “Oh, I do like you, Scarlett Parker.”

We ended up in a tiny bistro, sharing an antipasto and having more wine.

Nick was a wonderful date, funny and charming, and he seemed plugged in to London society enough to know a little bit about everyone’s dirty little secrets.

“So, tell me about Lady Ellis’s mother-in-law,” I said. “The ladies having tea at the shop today said that she hated Lady Ellis because she refused to have children, something about not wanting to lose her figure.”

“Pah!” Nick waved his fork at me. “More like she didn’t want to have to get knocked up by Lord Ellis as that would require . . .”

“What?” I asked when he paused.

Nick rolled his eyes and said, “Copulation.”

“That sounds dirty,” I said. I dabbed my lips with my napkin.

“It means—” he began but I interrupted.

“I know what it means. It still sounds dirty.”

“Only if you do it right,” he said with a voice even drier than our wine.

I busted up with laughter. There was just something so immensely likeable about Nick.

“Seriously,” I said. “What’s the mother of Earl Ellis of Waltham like?”

“As in, do you think she’s capable of murder?” he asked.

“Well, that was a straight shot into the heart of the beast,” I said.

“She loves her boy,” he said. “She thinks he married beneath him and then the tart won’t even pop out an heir.”

He set his fork down and leaned forward. “I’ve only seen her across the room at a few events, but she’s downright scary.”

“So then she could—” I began but he interrupted me.

“She’d never get her hands that dirty,” he said. “She would hire someone to do it for her.”

“But who?” I asked.

“That’s the million-pound question, isn’t it?” he asked. “Maybe you should just trot over to her mansion with a hat and see if you can get her talking.”

“Are you mocking me?” I asked.

“Not at all, I have great confidence in your ability to mine information from the gentry,” he said. He took a bite of pasta, chewed and swallowed and said, “So, how was the tea party anyway?”

“Interesting,” I said. “I had a nice chat with Marianne Richards.”

“Oh, I like her,” he said. “She’s a doctor, you know.”